Friday 27 November 2015

At the island, two Herring Gulls were quarrelling about something, probably a fish snatched from a Great Crested Grebe which was nearby.


Various kinds of gull were still trying to snatch fish off the Cormorants. But they just got the surrounding weed, as the fish had been swallowed in a flash.


This Cormorant had the time to throw the weed aside before it was grabbed by a gull.


Another Cormorant missed its footing when trying to jump on to a post near the island, but managed to grab the chain as it fell to avoid ignominiously splashing into the lake.


A Pied Wagtail on the shore of the Serpentine also made a mistake, seizing what it thought was a grub but turned out to be a bit of grass, which it spat out.


A Blackbird beside the Henry Moore sculpture had better luck with a worm.


There were lots of Mistle Thrushes flying in and out of the rowan trees on Buck Hill, sometimes eating berries, sometimes just chasing each other through the branches.


They are much less shy about being photographed than the migrant Blackbirds, which fly out of the far side of the tree as you approach it -- they aren't used to being in a park.

A big flock of Long-Tailed Tits, together with other tits, was working its way through the bushes on the east side of the Long Water.


The Black Swan now knows me and comes to be given a biscuit. He was at the landing stage beside the Diana fountain.


His girlfriend was a couple of hundred yards away -- they can't spend all their time canoodling when there are serious matters like food to be attended to.

Someone had poured some red lentils on to the shore of the Serpentine. Geese, pigeons and gulls all seemed to like these.

2 comments:

  1. I know how to tell a male Mute Swan from a female but what is the difference between the Black male and female swans?

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    1. Don't know, though probably males are a bit bigger than females. But the Black-Swan's girlfriend is a teenage Mute Swan, still grey. She is considerably bigger than him.

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